


by saying nothing

by Verbyna



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Coping Mechanisms, Crimes & Criminals, M/M, Money laundering, Pre-Canon, Underage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29413731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: Declan’s four rare 1950s editions into a ten-book stack, tension building between his eyes, when Dick Gansey sits diagonally from him at the table, upon which he sets an equally hefty stack.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Declan Lynch
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	by saying nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katarama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/gifts).



> title from depeche mode's _in a manner of speaking_ (and the nouvelle vague cover). this was kat's bespoke xmas gift, now archived as valentine's day angst per my ~brand.

i.

Declan wants friends, but only in the same vague way he wants his life to be more like a CW series, a story where there are plot lines in the supernatural chaos. And, more importantly, where there’s the implication that they will grow up and leave the supernatural chaos behind.

He’s working on managing his expectations. It’s going - well, it’s going.

He’ll get better at it.

A more productive avenue is focusing on his studies, where he is finally caught up, if not stellar. He was in the upper twenty-fifth percentile last term, which is acceptable. 

He would do better, both academically and socially, if he boarded at the school, but that’s not an option. He lingers in the library after classes, sometimes, and imagines that his life is just that: school, talking about parties, minor drug deals, bragging or complaining about upcoming family trips, a roommate to tolerate.

And then he goes home to his mother and his brothers, whom he only sees from a distance at school, and waits for his dad to blow in and take him away somewhere he’ll be useful. Waits to wake up in the night and see the Barns on fire, or overrun with fairytale creatures, or go downstairs to breakfast and find that the stairs are shifting like something out of Harry Potter, which he still has nightmares about a year after Ronan watched the movies with Matthew.

He is so completely unprepared for Dick Gansey to start treating him like a friend that he simply lets it happen.

ii.

It starts in the library, as almost nothing does. Declan is researching a lost painting that his father wants to forge and animate for a collector; he’s tasked Declan with compiling references for the painter’s model, who was a popular courtesan, but not popular enough to make the search easy online. 

He’s four rare 1950s editions into a ten-book stack, tension building between his eyes, when Dick Gansey sits diagonally from him at the table, upon which he sets an equally hefty stack. Declan keeps his head down, yet he can’t help but stare when Dick produces three even older books from his bag and the same standard Moleskine that Declan’s using. Dick’s is stuffed with other pieces of paper; Declan would break out in hives.

Then Dick takes a white archival glove out of the pocket at the back of the Moleskine, puts it on his left hand, and starts patting himself and his bag for a pen with his other hand.

“Here,” Declan’s mouth says, entirely without his input. He is holding out a spare pen.

“Thank you,” Dick whispers back, but he’s eyeing the four-color pen that Declan’s using. Before Declan can get offended, Dick says, “Actually, not to be rude, but could I borrow that one? It’s easier for notes. At a glance, you see. I had some, but I haven’t unpacked yet.”

Declan keeps his face smooth and hands over the pen he was using. He keeps looking over at Dick’s books, which he knows is a bad idea, because it might draw attention to his own stack. He thinks about the fact that it’s February and Dick Gansey, who enrolled after Christmas break, hasn’t unpacked yet. But instead of asking about Declan’s research, Dick introduces himself with an ease that Declan already knows he’ll emulate.

He asks Declan, “What do you know about Welsh kings?”

And Declan, used to weirdness and tired of these books, tired of waiting for his headache and pretending, making up excuses not to be home before Ronan’s asleep and then keeping vigil - he closes his Moleskine and says, “Tell me.”

iii.

Dick - _Gansey_ \- is suddenly everywhere, so Declan doubles down on being invisible.

Gansey is noticeable and well-liked. He’s somehow both essential to the school, as though a spot had been reserved for him, and above it; stranger than their peers, obsessive and dismissive and rich in a way that none of the others will learn to be until they’re much older. Comfortable with money because it’s useful, not because it makes him special.

Declan, too, has an unusual relationship with family money, in that he must hide that it’s laundered. He’s still too young to go to prison for the creative accounting he does. He won’t be too young for long.

Gansey is sought out, so when he begins to seek Declan out, Declan has to work twice as hard to look normal. He absolutely cannot afford to become popular, even by association.

For the first month or so, he assumes that Gansey would get bored and stop trying to hang out. (Declan hasn’t _hung out_ in his entire life.) But a month turns into two, and Gansey changes tack and asks Declan to visit him at home and see Gansey’s research.

Gansey is lonely, Declan realizes. He has no one else to talk to about his honest-to-God quest except Declan, and he lives off-campus, and Declan -

Declan is so tired of the Barns, where his dad is now holding court. Of the incessant music that distracts Matthew from homework he barely looks at, of being pulled aside by their dad to talk business and how Ronan never sees _that_ expression on their dad’s face, and their mom never tries to stop him, just sends Declan upstairs with extra dessert. Of being a bland face in Aglionby, his only distinction that he’s a local but he and his brothers pay full tuition.

He’s tired of the sick feeling that crawls up his throat, which he’s not ready to choke down just yet.

And so, in a moment of weakness mid-April, he follows Gansey’s terrible car to the warehouse where someone allowed a sixteen-year-old to live alone.

(It’s wonderful, Declan thinks. That sort of freedom. But he’s also angry on Gansey’s behalf, and he doesn’t know what to do with that, so he just puts his foot down and helps Gansey unpack.)

iv.

Declan uses the military knife under his pillow to kill something he can’t even describe. It’s four in the morning, and he corners it in the bathroom at the end of the upstairs hallway, so it will be easier to clean.

It bleeds black, copiously. Declan wishes he could keep guns in the house, if only so he wouldn’t have to get so close.

Ronan doesn’t wake up.

One of the rooms on the second floor at Monmouth has a bed, which Declan ordered with one of Gansey’s cards. Gansey calls it the guestroom; he took over the main space and has no bedroom of his own. He also doesn’t have any guests until the third night after the monster, when Declan lets himself in, exhausted and irrational. His dad came home, so Declan wasn’t needed. And he had to get out.

He has nowhere else to go.

He sleeps for fourteen hours, misses Friday’s classes, and doesn’t hint at leaving, so neither does Gansey. Those manners won’t allow him to turn away a guest in his home.

Gansey doesn’t ask why Declan is there, so Declan doesn’t have to lie.

They spend Saturday burning old furniture and accumulated junk in the yard, which is satisfying. The police come, but such is the power of Gansey’s personality and last name that they end up helping them haul things out to the bonfire, and Declan can suppress his fight-or-flight response to law enforcement.

He’s wearing one of Gansey’s shirts. For once, he’s just a raven boy getting away with something.

On Sunday morning, before Declan leaves, Gansey hands over a set of keys. Declan has no way to refuse without looking ungrateful and being rude, so he pockets them.

He arrives at the Barns just in time to see his father leaving.

v.

He shouldn’t want to spend time with people outside the family. It’s not safe, it’s not wise, and it’s untenable.

He still goes to Monmouth after classes several times a week. And he uses Gansey as an excuse when he’s with other people, which he also shouldn’t be doing, but at least he’s in no danger of saying things he shouldn’t to them.

There are girls his age, or a bit older, in D.C. or close to it. There are older women who know him from the Market, and older men who don’t know him at all but Declan wants to see up close, so he can be like them when the time comes. He doesn’t try to fuck them until one of them asks, and then he has to compare them. Learn them. He can’t abide coming up short.

He comes to Monmouth at two or three in the morning sometimes, and Gansey is always awake, building his little model town.

And even though Declan knows Gansey can smell the others on him, even though he’s seen Gansey leaning in sometimes, or watching Declan when he’s not talking - even though the water is getting murky, if Gansey’s awake, Declan doesn’t go to the guestroom.

And Gansey doesn’t ask, but Declan tells him, sometimes. When it’s late, and Gansey can’t sleep, and Declan doesn’t want to take a shower because he still won’t feel clean. If Declan limps in, Gansey fetches a bottle of painkillers when he brings in some juice or a book. When they’re both blank-eyed and empty, all their color blotted out by exhaustion, they sit closer together, and the warmth makes it better.

But Declan won’t seek out more magic than he is forced to accept, so even at his weakest, he doesn’t do more than listen to what Gansey says.

vi.

One night, Matthew sleeps over with his lacrosse buddies. Their mom and dad are on a date an hour and a half away. And Ronan can’t sleep alone in the house, so Declan brings him over to Monmouth.

He doesn’t expect Ronan to get caught up in Gansey, or in the quest.

But he was right. Gansey is hard to resist, especially at his most dangerous - when he’s not being polite, when his guard is down. When the forest fire behind the charisma shows through.

Declan never learned how to get close to things that won’t burn him, and being Gansey’s friend is more of the same, even when it’s not like anything else.

vii.

Gansey asks him, of course, how he should proceed with Ronan. Far be it from him to be uncouth, as roughshod as he treads sometimes.

But what could Declan tell him without confessing everything? What could he say without talking about their father in a way that only leads to more questions? On the surface, and most of the way down, Ronan is great. Well-loved and funny and sharp. Loyal. Declan would do anything for him, but most of all he’ll keep Ronan’s secret, so he can’t warn anyone away from him.

He wouldn’t even if he could.

He sees Ronan and Gansey talking sometimes outsides classrooms. Laughing. But it’s only Declan who sleeps at Monmouth, only Declan who sees Gansey erased or feral in the middle of the night. Ronan may catch glimpses, but Declan was given a key.

It’s Declan whom Gansey invites to D.C. for one of his mother’s parties, and Declan he impulsively kisses and then apologizes to.

Declan didn’t want his apology, standing in the crowd six feet away from a married senator more than twice their age who’d fucked Declan without touching him above the waist. Declan wanted the forest fire.

But he understands. They have no other friends. And Declan may show Gansey more than he does anyone else, but he always lies by omission, so Gansey will never be as close to him as Declan feels the reverse is true.

They kiss again in the guestroom a week later, Declan wrung out and Gansey awake for two days and counting.

“Can I,” Gansey says, not a question.

And Declan says, “Do.”

It’s just kissing, but Declan can’t pull away until he has to go to Sunday Mass hours later. He sits in the pew and he is grateful.

Gratefulness was one of the first things he endeavored to learn. He’s behind on confession, but the lesson holds.

viii.

He doesn’t mean to sleep with Gansey. Like most things since they met, including Declan’s careful filing away of Gansey’s mannerisms for future use, it happens without Declan’s input.

And he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want the attachment and wouldn’t know what to do with it if it developed, and neither does Gansey, who’s so sweetly naive he makes Declan think of scripture; still, when he’s in one of his burning moods, he could pin Declan down with any word except _confess._

He presses on Gansey’s hand where it’s braced across Declan’s chest and pins himself down. Traces it up to Gansey’s shoulder, his neck, and pulls him down into a kiss that’s as familiar as their uniform now. Spreads his legs so Gansey’s cradled between them, and when Gansey pulls back before the condom’s on to check on him, he mirrors one of Gansey’s own smiles back at him. Teaches him where fingers go, where his eyes should look.

It doesn’t make them any closer than they were before. Even with his cock inside Declan, Gansey doesn’t know him.

He’s closer than anyone ever got.

Declan didn’t know this was something he could hope for, but he takes it, and despite the briefness, it feels incredible.

For Declan’s eighteenth birthday, Gansey takes him diving in an underground cave for clues about Glendower. Declan lets Gansey unzip their wetsuits and fuck him on the bank of the lake among the stalagmites, high on second-hand joy in the leveling blue light, greedy for being so young and so unexpectedly alive.

ix.

It’s summer and Ronan is at Monmouth as much as Declan is. They’re clearing out the rest of the building; their dad is out of town and Gansey is buried in his research, so for the past week, when Ronan climbed into Declan’s car after breakfast and they drove to the warehouse, they just jumped into what needed to be done. Neither of them could take much more of the cow-watching.

Ronan tried to report their illegal yard fire, just to see what would happen, and the operator hung up.

That was Tuesday, but this is Saturday, and Gansey’s climbing the walls. “Go,” Declan tells them both, “I’ve got this.”

And he does have it. The floor below the miniature Henrietta is always a mess of felt and cardboard detritus, so he cleans it. He burns the last of the spare plywood blocking the bathroom upstairs, the one with the unhygienic refrigerator, and then he stands in the middle of the ground floor, imagining a Rothko or a Soulages in the far wall. Or something softer against all this concrete - Picasso sketches, a mess of visceral Dutch still lifes.

He’s still caught in his fantasy when he gets a call inviting him to an art opening in D.C.

He daydreams, in the car that picks him up, of a room full of small moments of madness. A slash of paint across pristine canvas, an obsessive sketch redone until the artist could sleep, a block of color where only texture tells the story.

He sleeps in the spare bedroom of someone’s spare house, dreaming he’s at school, invisible.

In the morning, he finds out that Ronan found their father butchered in the driveway.

x.

Twenty-three million dollars is not a surprising amount after he laundered most of it.

Gansey is at the Barns. He’s looking after Matthew (God, _Matthew_ ) and Ronan while Declan stands at their father’s desk, processing the contents of the will in front of the lawyer. He bribed the lawyer and his hyerarchical superior just last week. Upstairs, two paramedics are attending to his catatonic mother.

He was supposed to have more _time._ Time to hate their father with some distance, some money of his own. He doesn’t. It is clear that Niall Lynch expected to be taken out. The Barns are in trust for Ronan, but they must all vacate. The will is very recent.

And Declan is the executor.

He expects the injured-animal screaming he gets from Ronan; he catches almost every punch, and doesn’t return them. He expects the small injured-animal noises he gets from Matthew, and he already arranged care for their mother, whose fate was outlined in a sealed letter attached to the will, with instructions to burn. He burned it.

What he doesn’t expect is Gansey’s disappointment.

Nor, on the heels of that, the realization that Declan cannot, under any circumstances, allow Ronan to live in a dorm.

“I need a favor,” he tells Gansey.

The rest of the request tears from his chest like a rib.

He thinks, ridiculously, that they’re missing Mass.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr @soundslikepenance


End file.
